Guy Hamilton

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

~ Randy Blazak ~ 20 Comments

January 21, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

Diamonds are Forever (1971, directed by Guy Hamilton)

Sean Connery is back! This is probably the Bond film I saw the most on the 4 O’clock Movie in the seventies. Watching it five decades later, it pretty much sucks. Eon Productions was Bond-less after George Lazenby agreed to only make one film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Numerous actors were considered, including Americans Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Robert Wagner, and Batman’s Adam West. Ultimately, Connery was lured back with a promised $1.5 million payday. To recapture the glory, Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton was brought back, as was theme song singer Shirley Bassey. Early 70s 007 looked a lot like early 60s 007.

Diamonds are Forever begins with Bond hunting down Blofeld, presumably because he killed his wife in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. However, his wife is never mentioned and James shows zero signs of grief or even vengeance. He’s been trying to kill Blofeld since 1963 in From Russia With Love. One could assume that Lazenby’s Bond may have been married but Connery’s never was. Diamonds are Forever is much more of an American film than any previous Bond movie, with most of the action taking place in Las Vegas. (One of the reasons American Tom Mankiewicz was hired to work on the script.) I loved the scenes in Circus, Circus and Bond racing cops on Freemont. That Vegas is long gone (although you can still shoot water into balloons at Circus, Circus). Diamonds also gives us our first American Bond girl, Tiffany Case (played by 70s-80s TV fixture Jill St. James).

The attempt to recreate the magic gives us Bond staples, including Blofeld (and his darn cat), CIA agent Felix Leiter, James gambling in a casino (craps, this time) and, of course, an underground lair. Also space lasers and an elephant that plays slot machines. Added to Blofeld’s bad guy team are Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, a pair of sociopathic gay assassins. This might have fit a “homosexuals are deviants” narrative in 1971, but now it’s just horribly offensive. (I thought it was creepy when I was a kid, but now it just seems really, really dumb.) We do get a bit of globe trotting with a stop in South African diamond mine (no mention of racial apartheid, just black miners smuggling diamonds) and Amsterdam, where James meets a scantily clad Tiffany and says he likes her change of hair color, “provided the collars and cuffs match.”

Diamonds are Forever premiered in Munich, West Germany on December 14, 1971, three days before East and West Germany signed a historic agreement allowing for more open travel across the Berlin Wall. The film was a box office blockbuster but reviewers saw it as more silly than sexy. Maybe that was due to the fact the the special effects budget was sacrificed to pay Connery’s salary. The scene of Bond driving a moon buggy through the Nevada desert, being chased by henchmen on dirt trikes, is particularly goofy. But you do get Bond in his white dinner jacket scaling the Las Vegas Hilton (the “Whyte House” in the film) and Jimmy Dean (the sausage guy) playing a character based on billionaire Howard Hughes, who was friends with Bond producer Cubby Broccoli.

Seventies Bond may fair better. Let’s drop Diamonds into our matrix.

Driver of Action – Diamonds are Forever is classic Bond. We get brief cameos from M, Q, and Miss Moneypenny. Felix and his CIA team play a minor support role, especially when 007 encounters Bambi and Thumper, Blofeld’s bathing suit-clad guardians of Willard Whyte. Part of the story drifts into heist film with James and Tiffany as a team, but, rarely fully clothed, she seems to be just brought along for added sex appeal. Producers had Connery back and were going to make sure he was in nearly every frame.

Role of Violence  – The film starts with Bond on a killing spree as he tries to find Blofeld. That includes finding a woman on a beach, ripping off her bikini top, and strangling her with it. Ultimately, after killing someone in Blofeld’s lab (with mud), Bond kills Blofeld. Or a Blofeld.(“Welcome to hell, Blofeld.”)  There’s a scene where Bond kills a diamond smuggler after a pretty intense fight in a Dutch elevator and the now routine scene where Bond slaps his Bond girl. Most “fun” is when Bond realizes that Blofeld is alive (THE GUY THAT KILLED HIS WIFE – BUT NOT MENTIONED). In fact, there are apparently multiple “cloned” Blofelds and cats. He’s faced with two Blofelds (this time played by Brit Charles Gray, who played an MI-6 agent in You Only Live Twice). With a 50-50 chance, Bond shoots and kills the wrong Blofeld. “Right idea, Mr. Bond,” says Blofeld. “But wrong pussy,” says Bond. Oh yeah, there’s a climatic shoot out on an oil rig between the CIA and the Henchmen that kills a grip of dudes.

Vulnerability – Nope. Zero mention of Bond’s dead wife. Not even a hint that that’s why he’s after Blofeld. Older Bond is all business.

Sexual Potency – James might be losing his touch. He hooks up with a casino trollop named (ready?) Plenty O’Toole (played by Natalie Wood’s little sister, Lana). He gets her dress off but before he can get his pants off, some mobsters throw her out of a hotel window, into a pool. He tells the gun-toting goons, “Well, I’m afraid you’ve caught me with more than my hands up,” which, I assume, is a reference to the Bond Boner. Of course, Bond does bed Tiffany Case. (Her smoking in his bed the next morning is the clue.) At one point, while his body on hers, she asks, “What’s going to happen to me?” “I’m on top of the situation,” James says. Snort. But the required three sexual conquests is not achieved in Diamonds are Forever. Gee, maybe he was thinking about Tracy.

Connection – Maybe Connery was just tired of playing Bond, but 007 doesn’t really seem to care about anybody in this film, including M, Felix, Moneypenny, or Plenty (who gets tossed out of a tenth story window). There is some connection with Tiffany, who seems to want to be a spy as much as a diamond smuggler. The film ends with James and Tiffany, wait for it it, in a boat! This time it’s an ocean liner. But we’re not quite done. Here come Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, the homicidal homosexuals, posing as waiters with bomb souffle to kill Bond. They end up on fire and blown up, over the side as James and Tiffany sail away to short-term happiness.

Toxic Masculinity Scale: 4

Summary Seventies Bond still has a problem with race. The primary cast is lily white and we’re still stuck with “the sun never sets on the British Empire” ethos. (Did Richard Nixon have anything to say about British agents running amok in Vegas?) There’s a scene in Circus, Circus where a black woman is transformed into a gorilla for the amusement of children. And the mobsters of Slumber, Inc are caricatures of Italian mafiosos. Some of this will be both fixed and made worse in the next installment, Live and Let Die.

Aside from slapping Bond “girls” or throwing them out of windows, you get the sense that the most misogynist elements of the franchise were running on fumes by 1971. Diamonds are Forever is a cartoon version of a 007 film that tries to balance sexy or sexist Bond quips with more over the top diabolical plans. (There’s a comment from Blofeld that if his space laser destroys Kansas, nobody will know about it for four years.) It’s all just dumb. They should have made Gloria Steinem a Bond girl and had her repurpose MI-6 and the CIA to raid the underground lair of patriarchy. Ms. Bond, we need you.

Next: Live and Let Die (1973)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #5: Casino Royale (1967)

The James Bond Project #4: Thunderball (1965)

The James Bond Project #3: Goldfinger (1964)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project: #1: Dr. No (1962)

The James Bond Project #3: Goldfinger (1964)

~ Randy Blazak ~ 24 Comments

December 30, 2024

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

Goldfinger (1964, directed by Guy Hamilton)

“That’s my James!” Welcome to the James Bond blockbuster. With the massive success of From Russia With Love came an even bigger budget (and a new director). Goldfinger gave us franchise staples, like the pre-credits action scene, the bouncy Bond quips, infinite gadgets (including the loaded Aston Martin), the epic theme song, and multiple exotic locations (including rural Kentucky). And of course there are multiple women who are branded as Bond “girls” in the film who find their way into 007’s beefy arms.

The box office smash surely benefited from the 1964 British Invasion and the American obsession with all things English. Bond even has a snarky line about the Fab Four after he beds Goldfinger’s girl Jill Masterson, chiding her not understanding his standards for chilled Champaign. “My dear girl, there are some things that just aren’t done, such as drinking Dom Pérignon ’53 above 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs.” (It should be noted that two of the actors in Goldfinger, Richard Vernon (Colonel Smithers) and Margaret Nolán (Dink), had just appeared in the Beatles’ film A Hard Days Night and the Beatles 1965 film, Help!, would be a send up of Goldfinger.)

Goldfinger cemented the formula for what a Bond film would be for decades to come. It was released in September of 1964, in a world that was increasingly surrendering to the ennui of the East-West Cold War, the same month as Lyndon Johnson’s apocalyptic “Daisy” campaign ad that ended with a mushroom cloud. I had been born 7 months earlier and would be socialized into a world that saw Bond as the modern model of masculinity. Let’s check Goldfinger with our five reference criteria.

Driver of Action – Goldfinger is the archetypical Bond film, the begins with him blowing some shit up in Mexico and ends with him making sweet love to Bond Girl #3 Pussy Galore on a desert island, telling her “This is no time to be rescued.” There is no “buddy,” as in the previous two films, just Bond, and his MI-6 and CIA supporters (who play minimal roles). Even the nefarious plotting by Goldfinger (played by former Nazi Gert Fröbe after Orson Welles proved to be too expensive) to irradiate all the gold in Fort Knox is a minor subplot. Goldfinger is all about watching Sean Connery as Bond move from scene to scene; Mexico, Miami, London, Switzerland, Kentucky. In the opening scene, he steps out of his wetsuit dressed in a white dinner jacket and you know this going to be 110 minutes of pure Connery.

Role of Violence – Again, Bond has a relatively low bodycount in this film. People do die, especially women, including Jill Masterson. For her flirtation with Bond, she is painted gold and dies of “skin suffocation.” Her sister Tilly is killed by Oddjob, Goldfinger’s Korean henchman. But Mr. License-to-Kill is mostly restrained. A Mexican assassin gets an electric fan tossed into his bathtub. Some henchmen go over a cliff in a fiery crash after Bond shoots slick oil out of his Aston Martin. In the climatic scene in Fort Knox, Bond throws a henchman off a ledge and electrocutes Oddjob. (Apparently actor Harold Sakata was severely burned in the stunt.) Mostly Bond is the recipient of violence, including a laser beam aimed at his most manly parts while he is strapped to a table.

Vulnerability – Yeah, no. You wonder if we have to wait until the ‘90s to get new age sensitive James Bond. Whether strapped to a table with a laser heading toward his junk or locked in a Kentucky holding cell, or in a plane plummeting to the earth, we never see James break a sweat. 

Sexual Potency – Goldfinger is balls out on the message that Bond is the conquerer of women. In the opening sequence, he goes after a Mexican dancer and then uses her body to deflect an assassin. In Miami, he’s getting a poolside massage from his Florida fling, Dink (who’s cleavage was also featured in A Hard Days Night). Then there’s the romp with Jill who gets painted gold. In Switzerland, when a blonde passes him by in a ’64 Mustang convertible, he resists the urge to chase after her. “Discipline, 007, discipline,” he says to himself. She turns out to be Jill’s sister and they have a moment before Oddball kills her with his killer hat.

That brings us to Pussy Galore (the character, not the male fantasy). The Bond double entendres hit a new level here and Pussy’s name is mentioned constantly in the second half of the film. Galore is played by Honor Blackman, who was Diana Rigg’s predecessor on the highly popular British spy show, The Avengers. So she was coming in to Bondland a Judo-flipping badass, not a submissive DID (Damsel In Distress). In Goldfinger, she’s the leader of Goldfinger’s team of female pilots, playing a role in his grand slam plan. But there’s a scene in Goldfinger’s barn where James manhandles Pussy and the subsequent judo fight ends up with the two literally rolling in the hay. Galore tries to push Bond off her, but no woman can resist 007 and his assault ends in a passionate kiss. Woot, there it is.

Connection – Unbeknownst to the viewer, Pussy Galore’s Stockholm Syndrome turns her into an ally of Bond’s and Goldfinger’s evil plot is thwarted. As has already become an uber-cliche in Bond films, their end scene, making out under the parachute, casts no allusion that it’s the beginning of a beautiful relationship between James and Pussy. We know how this works. Women are transitory and co-workers are support players. Does Bond have any friends? A love that got away? He is supremely untethered. A man alone.

Toxic Masculinity Scale: 7

Summary –  Like an explosion of everything that was 1960s before LSD, Goldfinger is a magnum opus of a spy action film. The clever crime attempted (to irradiate the gold in Fort Knox to drive up the value of personal stocks of the metal) takes a back seat to watching Connery leap frog from woman to woman, often with his suped-up Bondmobile (Oh, to have stock in Aston Martin in 1964). Connery’s Bond is the Id unrestrained. One wonders what MI-6’s HR department would say about the workplace flirtations between Bond and Miss Moneypenny in the post #metoo era. But it’s the scene between Bond and Galore in the barn that reminds us that the debonair spy is not immune from the misogynistic value of male entitlement. A generation of boys learned women are to be taken by men, even if they resist. Pussy galore, indeed.

While contemporary audiences my get a bit of a creepy vibe from Goldfinger’s Bond, there’s a creeping trend that may be less noticed today. The third Bond film sees 007 more dependent on the technology provided by his employer. It may be a homing device in his shoe or an ejection seat in his car, but 1964 Bond is becoming less a man left to his own devices and more to the devices Q builds for him. Bond is the halfway point between the archetypical cowboy, fending for himself on the frontier, and Modern Man, juggling apps and monitoring social media, never not wired to the electronic collective. Where would Bond be without Q? Where would we be if the internet went down? One imagines that Bond would be better off, but not by much.

Next: Thunderball (1965)


The James Bond Project: #1 – Dr. No (1962)
The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)